What am i doing wrong (No Shadows)

Marcje

or what am I forgetting?
I have this render but I cannot figure out how to get a shadow under the knife...Please shield your eyes for the ugly looking knife (everyone has got to start somewhere)



(the knife is stuck in the ground, I also need some tips to improve that effect, because now it just looks like I cut the end of the blade and put it on the ground)

I am rendering with Mental Ray, So I tought that it would make a shadow by itself. I also tryed to add an ambient light but that wont work either.

I would really appreciate some help

Its about bedtime for me (23:55) so I will check this thread as soon as I get back from work tomorrow.

edit: I forgot to tell that i am using Maya 7.0

FunkaDelicDass

Lights in Maya typically don't have raytracing on by default. Go into your light's attributes and turn on raytracing. Also make sure raytracing is on in your MR render globals.

Marcje

I have raytracing on in my Mental Ray render option and I have it on on the Lambert material (that is the material that has the HDRI on it thus making it the image that lights my "scene") Still no results .

Thanks for the quick reply tough

Illusions

If you're using HDRI, you have to turn final gather on.

Daz

You sound a little out of your depth and mental ray can have a daunting array of options for a first time user. This helped when I first started using it: http://www.jozvex.com/tutorials/fg.html

Also, bear in mind that the quality of an HDR image is fundamental when rendering with HDR.

Marcje

That link is bookmarked It has some good explanation in it. And I think that I know what I did wrong. I think that the light that I added was not placed properly, so it didnt make any difference. .

And sorry if I say some things wrong or if I spell something wrong. English is not my first language altough I find it being my second one.

Thanks again (to all of you)
Take care,

Marcje